How I created a mobile fighting game for iOS

Chapter 1. Thank you, Michael Dudikoff

As a child I loved to dream about who I would become when I grow up. Which path to choose: space or ocean depths? No, I wanted to create games. Why games? I grew up at a time when the mind of any boy was poisoned by a computer boom and the first console battles. Years passed, my dream fell asleep, crushed by working days. And then one day ...

March 2014. 7 am in the usual Moscow gym. I lift dumbbells, suppressing sleepy discontent with conversations with local Hohmachs. Here he suddenly entered into our conversation.


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Boys and girls born at the dawn of the USSR well remember the nasal monophonic translation from the erased videotapes. And here is one of the holders of the voice appears on the TV screen, suspended from the ceiling. Of course, I immediately recognized the legendary Michael Dudikoff, the hero of the American Ninja epic.

Michael reminded me of how funny the old ninja films were throwing shurikens. A stack of stars in one hand, the other is talted over it with sliding movements to hit the enemy between the eyes.

The heavens opened and a ray of heavenly light hit me in the head! And what if, instead of a stack of shurikens, you have a smartphone in your palm, and with your second hand you slide across the screen, pulling realistic shurikens into an opponent. The level of injuries inflicted on the opponent depends on the accuracy of each throw. At the same time, no less deadly stars fly at you. It is impossible to dodge, but you can eliminate the opponent first and "survive." Each battle conducted increases the gaming experience and personal skill. Gaining experience, you get the opportunity to use shuriken with a greater striking force. A complete set for fun activities.

In the role of rivals - only living people. Users from anywhere in the world. Cool to fight with friends, but you can fight with a stranger. Such is the one-on-one minute stabbing.

It's cool that “flying out” from the screen of one smartphone, shuriken, without changing the set trajectory, breaks through space and time onto the screen of the opponent. Virtual reality in action. The drive will add a unique sound and animation.

So the idea of ​​an elegant time-killer was born. A little later, the baby Hattori was born.

Chapter 2. On the road, we must go, my friend

To create a good and quality product, it is necessary to overcome many difficulties, to go through a series of mandatory steps. And each stage should be implemented by a professional in their field. Only in this case a strong house will be built of bricks, and not a squishy shack.



Technical task. Beginner startups are often addicted to the description of hotelok. Successful ones make a detailed plan, setting out key features step by step. Proper TK is the best assistant for getting the perfect result.

When initiating a project, I didn’t have much free cash to delegate this stage. And who will you trust to create a “skeleton”, if only you see the whole organism?

Design. You can not trust the design designer or rely on yourself. Unless you are a professional designer, who falls asleep with thoughts of perfect usability. This is exactly the stage, the quality of which in the future will save a lot of resources.

Designing is necessary and IMPORTANT to do before the design stage. The better the prototypes, the better the programmers and designers will make your project. Already existing prototypes, in turn, can be updated at the design stage.



Design. Need a suitable designer. A person who loves games, energetic, resourceful and stylish with your permission. A person who draws cool and can embody all my ideas. And from above he throws another mountain of his own.
I chose the first candidate intuitively. And intuition is still that bitch.



You may have noticed the absence of genius in these works. And have already asked the question "how did it happen?"

I found a designer. Ivan hooked me to his portfolio on one of the freelancing sites. I liked his reaction to the description of the game, he seemed to be able to do something cool. I was so inspired!

As is often the case, admiration was quickly replaced by disappointment. After the first sketches, it became clear that the guy does not want to think at all, is not at all interested in games, and the theme of ninja and the East as a whole is far from him.

In my opinion, a good designer is not afraid to ponder into the task, develop it, introduce something of his own. Ivan did not want to delve into someone else's idea. I made conclusions. Said to Ivan "Saionar" and moved on.

I can talk endlessly about looking for a designer. This is my favorite stage. When, thanks to the talent and erudition of another person, fantasy takes shape.

After Ivan there were a few more people who tried their hand. But in my head every now and then rang: “This is not that! Your game needs a different way. ”

After a while and dozens of options, a clear understanding of the design of the future game came. Laconic, but not too simple, given the current reality, without the cartoon and kindergarten. My main censor, my beloved wife, helped me a lot. She has an excellent ability at first glance to tenaciously notice implicit flaws and give a sober judgment. Yes, yes, I know, I am henpecked.

Having spent the last reserves of mana to "call on the designer" it turned out the following:

- Hi Lech. Here is our idea. I want her to look like this! What do you think?
- OK. Let's do as I think. And you will tell me whether it is better or worse than what you wanted.

This was the first bell. Nuclear Designer. In a good sense of the word.



The proposed concept was very cool. She answered all my ideas about the game. Alive and not cartoony. With burning eyes.

I suggested to Alexey a partnership in the project, I really liked it. Just one of the necessary bricks to build a strong home.

In other people's stories, I love to read about creating icons. This small but important detail cannot be underestimated. The story about our dramatic and full of intrigue.

The battle for the icon lasted many days and nights. The controversy lasted no longer than eternity. Opinions are divided. I even started looking for a personal designer for our baby. Those who liked it cost a whole crowd of Benjamin Franklin. I was ready to go out and entertain the crowd with chants in order to collect the necessary amount.

We even had a fight with Lehoy. He seemed not to hear me. I thought it would be murder. Daily holivars did not give results, as well as constructive discussions. My arguments did not convince.



As a result, another designer drew a good icon, which we adopted (left in the bottom row), and then replaced with the one suggested at the very beginning (the second from the left in the top row). Forgive me Lech for the spent nerves.

And what is your liking?

Coding. Leonid is a long-time friend we met on one of the projects. Since then, do not spill water. We are partners, so programming, thank those hospadi, cost absolutely nothing. Partners flooded the entire project.

First difficulty: Leonid never coded under iOS. The second: the lack of the necessary glands. We were saved by Leonid's ability to learn at the speed of a flying shuriken. It also helped that there was a dirty and brake poppy from another project. The land he rest in peace.

By the way, after several months of work, Leonid made a willful decision to buy a new poppy. On your own money! Leonid believed in our success, and this could not but rejoice.

Someone may think that my friend is strange. And it is. But this conclusion does not negate the fact that he is a cool programmer and a good person.

Initially, I wanted to find other artists. Company-developer of mobile applications. But well that ends well. I am sure that at the exit I would get a cloud of invested funds and the absence of guarantees of a cool result.

Here I wanted to insert a monologue programmer about the architecture of the project. In short. Only native code. Only hardcore.

There was another interesting case. The game almost died. Together with Leonid ...
Have you already begun to empathize with him, thinking that he earned? Leonid ate an apricot bone when he made himself a miracle healthy cocktail. The world almost lost a good man, and we lost a month of development. Beware of apricot pits.



Content To translate the atmosphere into a game, you need good content. Every word and letter has a meaning - perception depends on it. Content fills the game, runs through its veins.

Wherever there are letters, you have to create something amazing. It should not be too difficult, but not tongue-tied. Not too long. Readable and with humor.

It is important to remember: if you get a successful product, you need full localization. I recommend doing localization when content in your native language is as sharp as the shurikens in the game.

You need to translate everything: the texts on the screenshots, the name of the game, keywords, the description of the game in appstore, the name of all the elements inside the game. I prepared a table that simplified and accelerated the process.



The table contains all the key languages. It makes sense to leave columns next to status for the current moment. The second block is intended for the transfers themselves. The keywords I made in a separate table, in which I estimated the traffic and the level of competition for each word. Very laborious action, if approached wisely.

We faced an amusing difficulty: having approved the button name we liked in Russian, we tried to substitute it in German ... the meter combination of letters obviously didn’t fit into the text field conceived by our designer.

It's time to talk about FONT.

****** crept unnoticed. As it turned out, at the design stage, no one thought about the localization of a unique font. For some reason unknown to sober reason, the designer began to build a visual range using the Latin alphabet. Picked up a suitable overall aesthetics font. When we put up the Russian language, the game began to curse in ugly letters. It all went. Surprise knew no bounds.

Where can I get Cyrillic for the font that we love so much? It would seem, go take another font that has Cyrillic. But who we will be if we go by pop.

Resolved! Draw Cyrillic and other characters for the current font. For the correct perception of the product by any user, it is very important that the text looks correctly and identically in different languages. Bottom line: a new font designer has appeared in my team.

Each letter, each character is drawn, wrapped and approved. After all the letters and symbols are ready, you need to spend a little more mana and “call upon a specialist” who will create a font file. Yes, yes, this requires a separate person.



Sound. Any game without cool voice acting is like a holiday in a boarding house near Moscow. Like and rest, but for this money it is better to the ocean.

When we got to the sound, the game was almost ready. I had and have a clear understanding that if you make a high-quality product, it’s not unkind to take ready-made sounds and music. With these thoughts began the search for talent.

Musical accompaniment is one of those areas of work in which I had almost zero experience. I went to freelancers and once again faced the Russian misfortune “I do little, I am lazy much, I want money.” I do not exclude that I was not looking there.



If you really burn with your project, be ready to collect information bit by bit, separate the wheat from the chaff, hang around for days on thematic forums. Patience and work professional zvukovika find.

I tried to drip over the hill and I was lucky. Studying favorite projects, inquired and went to the right person. The young composer, a nugget from the homeland of Julia Tomten.

I told him about the shuriken's magic. The idea hooked him, agreed to work together. The composer himself drew the actor for voice acting, and a month later we had sounds and music in the right format with the desired atmosphere. Everything is unique, written specifically for Hattori. I was ecstatic.

When working on sound, it is very important to describe everything in detail. At what point is the duration of what event occurs. Tell the composer about your preferences and the desired style. You are the person who should have a common vision of the situation and a clear understanding of WHAT YOU WANT. Only in this case, the result will deliver orgasmic sensations.

It is extremely important that the sound does not greatly affect the size of the application. But the quality can not be lost. For this, we used the m4a format. The rest of the formats fell off themselves, for various technical reasons. According to Leonid, when creating applications it is very difficult to make voice acting so that it works correctly and efficiently. I believe him.

Video. “And what’s the point of the video,” you ask. Recently, Apple has introduced such a fashionable feature, video preview. The sharp katana, like the shuriken, is a reliable companion of the shadow warrior, and the high-quality video is of high conversion.

You have only 30 seconds to show all the benefits of the game. Potential users are obstinate and demanding people, so it was decided to make a video without fail.

The requirements and searches on the Runet described in the Apple Guide did not clarify and did not provide answers. The method of trampled down rake showed:

- Gameplay needs to be shown vertically;
- Without announcer voice;
- Without extraneous objects, especially the iPhone itself;
- Duration no more than 30 seconds;
- The size of the source is not more than 500mb;
- Format exclusively MOV with ProRes codec;
- Aspect ratio for current devices;
- Strictly no more than 30FPS;
- Without excess water, dynamically show the essence;
- You can upload video only if you have a Mac and the latest version of the browser with the OS.

By the way, make a reservation: compliance with all requirements is mandatory. Otherwise, you may encounter a situation where your video in the release will NOT appear.

Another little adventure. One worthy ninja, during development, became an extremely dedicated fan. And he shot for us an obscene version of the trailer for viral promotion in the network. It turned out beautifully and gave a certain experience. Those who suffer can appreciate the creation on the site.

Chapter 3. Promote me completely, fully promote

The main goal of the promotion is to increase the critical mass of users. For what? To receive daily tons of organic downloads. At the beginning, you are working on promotion. Then, the promotion works for you.



It was necessary to choose the most effective and cost-effective means of promotion. My choice fell on:

- ASO. Optimize the application to maximize its conversion. Names, keywords, translations into other languages. Keywords in other languages. Here I was very helped by articles on Habré and the miracle sensortower.com service

- Publication reviews. It is necessary to select only live resources on which there is a target audience. You should not use ready-made services that offer to send your application to the whole world of journalists. This is far from the truth and inefficient. It requires an individual approach to each selected resource.

- Public. The game is massive, so we are interested in the places of mass dwelling of people with the necessary devices. Public fits very well in these conditions.

- Letsplery. Players who record and comment on their gameplay. They post their stories on the tubes and collect huge audiences. This segment suits us because of our reach and target audience.

These methods should help the game reach a critical mass of users, which can generate the income necessary for further development from the advertising built into the game.

To understand the progress, you need to know the answers to specific questions. What is the main goal of your application? Sales target? Profit goals? Price targets? How much is your target audience? Who makes your target audience? Who are the main competitors? What are the advantages, disadvantages, opportunities and risks of the application? What ways can you promote your application?



A clear plan and adherence to it will lead to the desired result. Everything else is an excuse for your own laziness. In the required order, the site and press kit.

Chapter 4. Finances sing romances

It's too early to talk about income. And a separate story is needed for such stories. I have prepared a convenient table, which reflects the costs.



The main costs were on design and sound, despite the fact that the designer became our partner, and the composer went to the meeting and gave good terms of payment in installments.

My experience suggests that for such money, the probability of creating a product of similar quality is paltry. Could be done faster if it were not for force majeure in the form of permanent employment of key people and apricot stones. The experience gained during this time is priceless.

Chapter 5. Winter is coming

What would you like to summarize all of the above? The toy turned out to be a “tasty”, juicy beauty with its own character.



Playing with a live opponent, in another point of the earth is something enchanting, indescribable feeling. This is not the case where you are stuck on the pillboxes for two days. There is enough lightning impulse, a tolerable connection and a minute (if you can come off ...) free time. Traffic jam? Queue at the doctor? Boring lecture? You call an opponent to fight and you see how the shurikens are flying - it means that someone is playing on the screen at a breakneck pace trying to knock your whole soul out of you. And you, like two ... EEE ... weird dude, jerking your hands with smiling faces.



The coolest, in my opinion, is a game with friends. Looking for it in the search, well, or choose from a list of those who are nearby. And rushed! When we tested the game with Leonid, our legendary programmer, he smacked me. In 15 seconds. I was beside myself. It blew a wild competitive spirit in me.

I began to train. Here you already strive to get to the improved shuriken in order to punish the upstart. By the way, a nice bonus - my hands hurt after the game. So much for physical education.

To be honest, we were extremely happy when we saw the reaction of the first eyewitnesses of our ninja battles. The whole carriage was watching us when we decided to test the performance of Hattori in the metro. Showed the game in the sports hall - a bunch of visitors immediately crowded. We looked at why I was behaving so strangely, waving my hands like scalded.

Finish this story until it works. I believe that this is the beginning of something bigger. I am glad that I managed to implement my idea exactly like this. I hope that you will also be able to experience all the love and soul you put into the game. Spend more than one hour to fight with friends. And of course, this story will be useful for you. If the story will be accepted by the community positively. I pledge to write the following, which will reveal in detail the output in the TOP and tell more about the technical aspects of the product.

Arigato. Sayonara, and to new meetings online.